THE UK air traffic should stay again disrupted for several days because of the “Technical problem” which yesterday affected the British air traffic control automatic systemUK Transport Minister Mark Harper warned today.
“There will be repercussions today and I think for several days to come as airlines get their planes back and get their services back on track“, the minister told the BBC. Indeed, if the airlines modify their flight plans to try to take care of the maximum number of passengers stranded since yesterday, certain planes or crews are not immediately available.
Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) said yesterday that the outage had affected its ability to process flight plans automatically, meaning that for several hours plans had to be entered manually, a process much slower which delayed take-offs and arrivals. According to aviation analysis firm Cirium, 232 flights departing from UK airports and 271 arriving flights were canceled yesterday afternoon alone.
The hypothesis of a cyberattack targeting the British air traffic control computer network was a priori ruled out by the London government.
Videos circulating on social networks show endless queues of passengers waiting for their flights at European airports to return to the United Kingdom.
The queue of people waiting at the Ryanair desk airside at Dublin Airport right now. A number of flights have been canceled or delayed due to a massive problem with the UK’s air traffic control system
by @NiallJournal_ie pic.twitter.com/e0zE34T1ez
— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) August 28, 2023
